Oh, no he did not do that!
Think for a moment.
Go back to 2006 or early 2007.
Let’s say there were some important high level talks going on.
And Nancy Pelosi had done the following things things. First, she walked out of the talks very publicly Then second, when President Bush called her, she refused to return his phone calls.
How much outcry do you think we would have gotten from supporters of the last administration? The yelling and name calling would have been instant, vociferous and unrelenting towards Pelosi.
I’m not saying I, as a private citizen, didn’t heap plenty of disrespect on the last administration.
for various reasons beginning with the outcome of the 2000 election being questionable, and ending with his gutting of FMLA in 2009 just as he was leaving office.
Up to, and including not referring to George Bush as President Bush for quite some while.
(I was taken to task by a friend of mine and grudgingly restored the title on the theory he proposed that it was disrespecting the office, not just the man in the chair.)
But the difference is exactly that. I was a private citizen, exercising my right to free speech and dissent. not a public figure.
Everybody’s got that right to free speech, I know that. Everyone on the right or the left can (and often does) slam the President every day.
I’m expressing my opinion of some free speech by congresscritters on the right since President Obama took office
This is not about what ordinary folks say or think to disrespect the President. That has always happened. I’m talking about the people we elect to work for us. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold them to a different standard of following procedure, of respecting the office… than the rest of us.
I’m fed up. Fed up with the disrespect that public officials are showing the President of the United States. There’s the “You Lie!” of Joe Wilson during the state of the union. The endless emails circulated by political leaders… Photoshopping pictures of the Obamas to appear as monkeys.
And now, the arrogant entitled disrespect of not returning the phone call of the President of the United States when our economy is about to inflict more damage on the world than that 2012 asteroid that people are yammering about.
For the love of sanity, disagree with the President’s policies and actions. Stand up in Congress and speechify about how “dangerous” his policies are. Get specific about why you disagree and your version of what works. (They’re finally beginning to be on board with specifics…but it could be too late for that. )
And from the left, keep holding these policies to account as the knives come out for Medicaid/Medicare/VA benefits/Social Security.
We don’t pay Speaker Boehner or Eric Cantor to act like they’re seniors at West Point and President Obama a lowly plebe. And the timing of this frat boy playacting is so dangerous for the country they say they love…I can’t even begin to fathom it. Our tax dollars pay these men and women to work on our behalf. (Or, *somebody’s behalf, but *that’s* not even happening)
Cut the disrespect. get working.
I wonder…if no deal is reached…
what would happen if folks in the service industry who recognize individual Republicans and Tea Partiers…In DC or Maryland or Virginia…did this…Waitresses spilled coffee on Republicans. Inadvertently.
Mechanics shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, but we’re backed up. Can’t get you in till next Tuesday.”
Golf courses suddenly need landscaping that forces them to close.
Wait staff at GOP leaning high end clubs etc….called in sick.
Cashiers took twice as long as necessary to ring up purchases.
Drycleaners couldn’t find their suits.
Barbershops/Salons suddenly found themselves booked solid.
etc.
Curses are out of fashion, so…
August 3rd,1:00 am
A lot of people with more experience in these matters have spoken about this…
I’m weighing in.
Back in 1980. When I was a college freshman:
Along with the folks I agreed with:
I knew a few Ayn Randians around the college dormitory,
I knew a few sons and daughters of fiscal conservatives around the college dormitory who were bent on following in their parents footsteps.
I even knew a couple of evangelicals around the college dormitory.
College is supposed to be the place where people discuss.
In my particular crowd, most of whom were studying the ‘soft sciences’ or writing and literature, the many conflicting theories of the right and left got aired, re-aired and re-aired again.
Usually at night…in the company of whatever substances happened around.
You’d have a different take at 7:30 when you’d just had dinner, than at 1:00 am more than a little bit altered.
Libertarianism, lower or no tax idolatry and the self-interest worship of Rand…. are acceptable as mental wrestling at 1:00 am at college I suppose, if that’s the side of the road you’re on. Personally, early exposure to these ideologies was very helpful for me. It ruled out several men I might have dated as disasters… “Uh, no…not asking that one if we could go for a beer…” But for living in our present reality?
America is not a campus, where you can try shiny ideas out…and say “Let’s take this theory, and apply it to the * budget and see if it works….
Our country is not a damned football game where one “side” has to win.
I’m going to sound like a righty for a minute.
I love America. What in the hell are these people doing to it? (Okay I’m done sounding like a righty now)
Do these right wing purists, the ones who won’t vote to raise the debt ceiling no matter what…do they understand what they are doing to people that fund them, and people they say they stand behind and support, never mind the stuff they hate…do they know what this will do to the world economy? To veterans, and active duty military? This isn’t a miniseries, a movie, or a dress rehearsal….If I were a country holding a great deal of US debt? I’d be a bit concerned.
Apparently House Republicans are willing to burn even those folks for the sake of that idea they grabbed at 1:00 am. They’d rather kiss Grover Norquist than support the military and their families.
Support the troops my oversized backside.
Wall Streeters are freaking out. (Not that they don’t deserve a bit of panic, but that’s another diary for another day.) They say this could make the Great Depression look like a blip on the radar.
Economists are waving metaphorical signs and using words like apocalyptic.
(That word, of course, is not having the desired effect. Right wing Evangelical Dominonists love it. They think they’re allowed to start the Rapture all by themselves…another one of those 1:00 am theories…)
(I know they don’t bother to think about seniors, or my tribe, people with disabilities, so I don’t even bring us up here. So many of us (myself included) won’t be able to pay rent if this goes down.)
This isn’t a lecture course, a reading assignment or a term paper…and there will not be a quiz.
We are not a game or reality show Congress. You all work for us.
Please do your job. And do it fast.
